Pope Francis joining Instagram with official account

Expanding on his existing social media presence, like an official Twitter account, Pope Francis is joining the ranks of Instagram with an official account on the platform. Reports indicate the new account will launch at the end of the week. The news surfaced on Italian newswire ANSA which reported the official account name will be Franciscus.

Pope Francis has indicated in the past that he thinks the Internet has great potential to help “build a society which is healthy and open to sharing.” He has also been active in meeting with key individuals in the tech industry like Eric Schmidt and Tim Cook. More recently he met with Instagram founder and CEO Kevin Systrom. Although setting up his own account probably only came up in passing, the two did discuss how images can help bring people together, especially across the societal and cultural boundaries that exist in today’s world.

Pope Francis’ Twitter account has more than 8.8 million followers. An existing, official Instagram account for the Vatican has 78,900 followers already.